Stung Treng province police are searching for the body of a man they presume dead after his boat sank in a freak accident on Tuesday. 

The man had been fishing with his wife along the river in Stung Treng town’s Samaki commune when the boat capsized and the couple were flipped into what the wife described as a “whirlpool”.

“The couple were lifting up their fishing net, but it was probably stuck on the root of a tree and they collapsed into the water,” Samaki commune police chief Ung Sopheak said. 

The victim’s wife, Sang Sunheang, caught hold of an above-water tree branch as she was swept away, but her husband was not as lucky. 

“He could swim, but he could not win against the strong whirlpool that pulled him under water,” she said yesterday, adding that she had tried to catch him but couldn’t.

The victim’s family had celebrated his funeral without his body, police said.